Interesting premise - Espiocracy

Russia's Espiocrats
(((The plutocrats have been tamed, and replaced by a vast horde of spies. Much as this ominous prospect gives me pause, I have to think that maybe the siloviki are an *improvement* over the former semibankyrshina. Those moguls were a deeply unpleasant lot, and think what you may of Putin's spy petrocracy with its giant bombs, oil blackmail and hideously poisoned dissidents, he is hugely popular with the general Russian population. Ivan Sixpack loves that guy. Even Ivana Winecooler gets all hot and bothered when she sees Putin on vacation half-naked in camo pants.)))

'SILOVIKI' TAKE THE REINS IN POST-OLIGARCHY RUSSIA (Article)

Another link dump...

...I've been too lazy to offer much opinion lately.
It is what it is.
I think we're probably fucked as a whole. Economy, environment, culture.... Individually, I'm cutting costs and becoming more self-sufficient. Not in that crazy, tax resisting, survivalist kinda way.
Living leaner and greener with a hint of Ballardian post-cultural meltdown.

• Disinformation :: CIA 'Blew Chances To Spot 9/11 Threat'
• Boing Boing: Bulletproof school backpacks for frightening children
• Archives for Dave Emory - "Anti-fascist researcher Dave Emory (spelled E-M-O-R-Y) goes into all the hidden truths and details about evil men and their trade practices."
• deviantART: where ART meets application!
• Robot Hut Museum
• How voters are susceptible to politicians who can manipulate their fear of death - Boing Boing - (More Evidence -Snag)
  
• The Cacophony Society > Start-A-Lodge Cacophony Primer
• BaD ADViCe - (Alternative Porn)
  
• Political attitudes may be all in head -- chicagotribune.com - (No wonder right wingers are afraid of science -Snag)
  
• Elderly couple abandons home, moves into Travelodge - Boing Boing
• Police Find Man's Body, Guillotine In Wooded Area - Local News Story - WDIV Detroit - (Ballardian suicide -Snag)
  

Writer's rooms - Ballard

Writers' rooms: JG Ballard

More writer's rooms

Obey!

Milgram later commented, "I would say, on the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town."(Article)

Or anywhere, I would suspect....


And then there's the Stanford prison experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo:

Not even "innocent" children are immune to the effects of socialized hate:
Part 1 of Frontline's "A Class Divided"

THEY can get to anyone one of us.

Apologies...

...again for those that check here from time to time (thank you Middle Child, comments keep me writing).
It's been a busy couple of months (I do have very mundane, real world obligations).
With that, a quick thought -

It's not Global Warming...

It's Revenge!

Gaia hypothesis